Tony Blair was worried the Queen would be killed by an acrobat after he invited her to a Millennium party.
A documentary tells how trapeze artists were flying above the then Labour PM, the late monarch and husband Prince Philip on New Year’s Eve 1999.
Anji Hunter, Director of Government Relations from 1997 to 2001, says Mr Blair had already had a “horrible feeling” about the chaotic celebrations at the Millennium Dome in East London.
She says: “He had a sort of dread, going up to that evening. And then these trapeze artists were swinging literally above their head. And Prince Philip said to Tony, ‘Look they’ve got no safety wires.’
"Suddenly he had this vision that one was going to fall onto the Queen and the headlines the next day was ‘Queen killed by flying acrobat’.”
The documentary tells how Mr Blair was surprised the Queen even accepted the invitation.
Awkward photos and videos showed her kissing Philip at midnight and struggling with crossing and linking arms for Auld Lang Syne.
Anji says: “Tony felt so sorry for them. He thought, ‘They don’t want to be here.’”
The ITVX documentary also reveals how the Queen told the then Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey how she could never quit the throne.
After he announced his resignation, he says she told him: “You people come and go, I can’t resign, I can’t surrender – I’ve got to keep going’.”
Lord Carey says he replied: “‘The Lord tells me at the age of 70 I’ve got to go.’ But she would never go.”
Queen Elizabeth II died last September aged 96.
* The Real Crown: Inside the House of Windsor is released to stream as a five-part series on ITVX today.
